English 536

            After taking an entire semester of a class on William Shakespeare, I will not lie I am glad to be done. I went into the class with an optimistic attitude about wanting to not only learn more about the works of William Shakespeare but to learn how to enjoy his work as well. Now that the class has come to an end, I feel relieved to say that I can totally understand why writers are so influenced and get so ecstatic about his work. I admit during the beginning of the course I enjoyed the plays of Titus Andronicus and Richard III. I don’t know if it is because of my dark sense of humor or my need for bloodshed, thanks to years of violent video games but I found the tragedies of Shakespeare way more entertaining.

I like the fact that within these tragedies there were no squeaky, clean good guys or no bad to the bone, bad guys. I like the construction of characters such as Aaron and Richard III, who were simply products of their environment. These characters were not bad for the sense of being bad but they were villains for a reason. I also enjoyed the relationship between the characters such as Romeo and Juliet, along with Benedict and Beatrice. While I found the relationship of Romeo and Juliet as one of the most romantic stories ever written about the love shared between a man and a woman, I found the relationship between Benedict and Beatrice completely humorous.

            I admit that I no longer find the work of William Shakespeare pretentious because I now have a better understanding of him as a playwright and also I have a better understanding of his works. I do consider Shakespeare as one of the greatest writers and some of his work as the best that has ever been written.  I still don’t experience the same excitement as other writers experience about his work. I admire the beautiful words and the language as I have always but I am still waiting for the day when I read one of his plays or piece of poetry and I just get chills. No matter how I feel about Shakespeare personally, my feelings about English 536 will forever be bittersweet because I would have never considered myself a fan of Shakespeare before the class but now that it is over I consider myself a great admirer of his work.

The Tempest

            In William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, I found it hard to just read the text of the play because I had hard time imagining each scene being played out in my head. I found myself wanting the scenes to be played out with actors and special effects because the play has so much action, which is created with magic. Magic is also something that I think I would rather witness on a stage or in a film instead of reading about it in just plain text. I think having to read the play first then watching certain scenes after I had read it, took away from my experience of the play.

I think watching the scenes after I had read the play took away from my experience because once you have read it, you have already imagine the scene constructed inside your head. I found myself let down a little because the scenes I watched were not like I imagined. Like in Act III, Scene III, when King Alonso and his party are tired from searching and they are visited by these strange shapes bringing in a banquet of food. This is one of those particular scenes that I think you just can’t read about and truly get the full effect of the play. I think with a scene like this one you have to see it because a simple description doesn’t do it justice. I wanted to see the strange shapes that are talked about in this scene. I wanted to see a banquet of food being laid out for these weary men. I wanted to witness the food and drink being made to vanish right in front of these men. I didn’t just want to see it in my head.

 Also the characters in the play that are not considered human such as Ariel and Caliban, I think I wanted to see created with the use of special effects and costumes on screen or on a stage. Just reading about these characters I think did not do them justice as well. It could be my lack of imagination or the fact that countless movies go overboard on spending with the budget for special effects and costumes but I just really wanted to see what could have been done with these characters outside of the text. Overall, I like the fact that this played used magic. I think that is what most attracted me to the play.